Great suggestion – thanks again for taking the time to put it on this site and for the thoughtful followup comments. This is pretty related to some other work we’ve got going and already has a fair number of votes, so we’ll work on getting plans in place now and hope to get started on this soon.

I've constantly found myself installing and re-installing add-ins that add RegEx Functions to Excel. Everyone I introduce them too finds them extremely useful. There's over half a million results in google for the query ["excel" ("regular expression" OR "regex")].

There should be a *VLOOKUPS function (or you name it) alongside VLOOKUP to find data based on multiple criteria. I know there are workarounds like INDEX and MATCH but they are unnecessarily complicated considering COUNTIFS and SUMIFS functions do a neat job at counting and adding multiple criteria. And please make it so it works with unsorted data.

Thanks for the feedback! We’re seeing a number of different posts about lookup functions – we’ll be taking a close look at this area and thinking it through. We’ll prioritize the asks according to votes along with other requests on the site. So I encourage people to keep voting if it’s something they really want to see the priority raised on.

Just like =IFERROR(), could we also get =IFBLANK() and =IFZERO(). I would use these on a regular basis, and it would cut in half the size of large formulas where I just want something specific to happen where the result is either blank or zero

Thanks for the suggestion. I think I’ve seen some related requests, I’ll look at merging them to make sure the votes properly reflect the ask. We’ll prioritize this into the execution pipe appropriately based on the number of votes.

2. provide a function that does the listing of the sheets in the workbook. This is presently being done using macro. there are certain companies which do not permit the running of macros within the excel workbook.

Thanks for taking the time to post a suggestion Malcolm! We’ll be taking a look at lookup functions. There’s a number of votes on the site for them – I’m not going to merge all of them though because different posts are asking for slightly different things. Please keep voting for the ones you want to see most!

Are you tired of duplicating complicated formulas within an IF statement in order manage blanks or zeros?

e.g. IF(long formula="","",long formula)

A universal IF statement (lets call it IFX) would decrease this type of duplication without having to add multiple new IF formulas the likes of IFNULL, IFBLANK or IFZERO.

An IFX function would accept the condition you want to test the formula against, if the condition is true it would return the specified alternative (such as blank). If the condition is false it would return the value of the formula itself. Ideally it would be able to accept multiple conditions.

IFX(condition,value if true,(condition2,value if true2...),formula)

eg: IFX(0,"",SUM(A1:A3))

If the sum of A1:A3 is 0 the result will be blank ("") otherwise the result will be the value of the sum.

Obviously this is very simplified example. IFX would more useful in more complicated situations. One I come across all the time is when a lengthy IndexMatch formula returns a zero but I want the cell to be blank instead. These types of formulas can end up being 2-3 lines long by the time I duplicate the IndexMatch to test for the zero.

Are you tired of duplicating complicated formulas within an IF statement in order manage blanks or zeros?

e.g. IF(long formula="","",long formula)

A universal IF statement (lets call it IFX) would decrease this type of duplication without having to add multiple new IF formulas the likes of IFNULL, IFBLANK or IFZERO.

An IFX function would accept the condition you want to test the formula against, if the condition is true it would return the specified alternative (such as blank). If the condition is false it would return the value of the formula itself. Ideally it would be able to accept multiple…

Interpolation (even a simple linear interpolation) would be a great native function for Excel to have. Something like INTERPOLATE(KnownXRange,KnownYRange, NewX) would be fantastic for anyone who ever has to do this

Thanks for the suggestion, and thanks for showing how you’re using the FORECAST as a workaround. We’ll consider this request along with all the other ideas here and prioritize it according to the votes – so please keep voting if you want to see the priority raised!

The formatting codes are different in every language, so for example, for the day is "d" in English, "g" (from "giorno") in Italian, "T" (from "Tag") in German).

Working in a multi-language environment where different users have different language settings on their PC gives the problem that when you write a formula that contains the formatting codes, the formatting codes are not translated and the formula doesn't provide the intended result.

For example, if I, with language settings in Italian, want to write a formula to display the current date as text in English, I have to use the following: ="Today is: "& TEXT(TODAY(); "[$-0809]gggg"). This formula on a computer with different language settings (English, German or whatever) will result in "Today is: gggg".

So, my suggestion is that the formatting codes in the formulas are automatically translated like the names of functions and all the menus/ribbon items.

Alternatively, could be useful that the formatting codes for English can be used also with different languages, so I can use ="Today is: "& TEXT(TODAY(); "[$-0809]dddd") even with my Italian settings and the formula will give the correct result "Today is Thursday" independently from the language settings of the computer.

The formatting codes are different in every language, so for example, for the day is "d" in English, "g" (from "giorno") in Italian, "T" (from "Tag") in German).

Working in a multi-language environment where different users have different language settings on their PC gives the problem that when you write a formula that contains the formatting codes, the formatting codes are not translated and the formula doesn't provide the intended result.

For example, if I, with language settings in Italian, want to write a formula to display the current date as text in English, I have to use the following:…

We’re always looking for ways to make formulas smaller and easier – thanks for the suggestion! We’ll prioritize this according to the number of votes, so keep voting if you want to see this get done sooner!

In many cases we need to find the Nth number of a duplicate. There are funky workarounds with complicated formulas, and currently no simple way to do this. I would like to propose a function to return the Nth instance of a value found in a specified range. It would return a range, like the INDEX function does now, which would make it extremely powerful and simplify many existing formulas.

I don't care about the name, so the best I could think of was ITERATION or INSTANCE, but I'm sure someone could find other clever names as well.

=ITERATION("Apple",A1:A6,2)
Would return Range("A4"), with value of Apple.

=ITERATION("Apple",A1:A6,4,TRUE)
Would return #N/A, as there is only 3 values found and [Exact_iteration] was passed as TRUE.

=ITERATION("Apple",A1:A6,4)
Would return Range("A6"), as [Exact_iteration] wasn't specified, so FALSE would be the default resulting in the max iteration (being 3 in this case).

I'd be willing to bet this could be made to be fairly efficient written in C#/++. :)

In many cases we need to find the Nth number of a duplicate. There are funky workarounds with complicated formulas, and currently no simple way to do this. I would like to propose a function to return the Nth instance of a value found in a specified range. It would return a range, like the INDEX function does now, which would make it extremely powerful and simplify many existing formulas.

I don't care about the name, so the best I could think of was ITERATION or INSTANCE, but I'm sure someone could find other clever names as well.

Have the ability to mark a cell as an "Exception". If you edit a formula in a cell and double click to auto-fill the cells below it, it will skip over the exceptions and leave them as their given value